In 2013, it’s time to sit back and relax. Modern browsers have several dedicated animation technologies built in, which run at 60 fps. Now is the time to forget about the past and start building UI experiences with tasteful animations that help the user feel at home. I would like to take you on a guided tour of the four animation technologies the modern web has to offer to help you decide which one is right for your project.

Let’s start with the easiest to use declarative technology: CSS3. No need for JavaScript here, just plain old CSS, with a few modern tricks.

CSS can be used to declare animations using two basic properties: transition and animation. The transition property tells the browser to compute intermediate frames between two states, each defined by its own CSS. The animation is triggered when the CSS of the element changes. For example, because you programmatically changed its class or because a :hover CSS has kicked in.

Here are 30 blogs I read consistently. They’re well written, informative and actionable. Read these blogs and you’ll have strategies you can use today. Each recommendation includes a description of the value proposition and a link to a good article to start with. I’ve sorted the blogs into general categories.

CREATIVITY IS KEY TO INNOVATION. SO HOW DO YOU EXPAND YOUR OWN CREATIVE CAPACITY AND THAT OF YOUR BUSINESS? THROUGH SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT, ARGUES BRUCE NUSSBAUM.

The holidays are over, the weather is lousy, and we’re sober again. We made all kinds of New Year’s promises, but the big one that will change our careers, if not our lives, is the promise to ourselves to become more creative. In my new book, Creative Intelligence, I show that creativity is learned behavior that gets better with training–like sports. You can make creativity routine and a regular part of your life. That’s true for big companies as well as small startups, corporate managers as well as entrepreneurs. Creativity is scalable.

The huge national policy storm brewing over “dwindling innovation” and an “innovation shortfall” also gives creativity an even greater agency. Creativity is the key to generating economic value and getting the U.S. economy to grow fast again.

So here are four specific ways to lead a more creative life and boost your creative capacities. Creativity is not about blue rooms and brain waves but about social engagement and mining the existential. Here’s what you can do.

So many good things appeared in September that Mark Penfold couldn’t bear to cut the list down to the traditional 10. Here are 11 top utilities for building on the web

It’s a real mixed bag this month. IDEs, prototyping tools, visual effects, slide shows … there doesn’t seem to be any obvious connection. But the tendency for tools to incorporate some degree of playing-field levelling remains evident.

For example, a mobile framework that enables you to ‘code once’ – and in JavaScript, no less. Prototyping tools with components for multiple platforms, IDEs that facilitate rather than getting in the way of fluid development. An important goal for each of these projects is to iron out some of the web’s wrinkles so you can focus on solving real problems not re-inventing the wheel.

Stand-out performance though, has to go to Microsoft for WebMatrix 2. Not just because it’s a strong piece of kit but because it puts so much of the PC giant’s other output into sharp relief. And yes, IE, that still means you.

This week, California took a big step forward in the march toward online education. Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a proposal to create a website that will allow students to download digital versions of popular textbooks for free.

The new legislation encompasses two bills: One, a proposal for the state to fund 50 open-source digital textbooks, targeted to lower-division courses, which will be produced by California’s universities. (Students will be able to download these books for free or pay $20 for hard copies.) The other bill is a proposal to establish a California Digital Open Source Library to host those books.

On the textbook side, California will ask the California Open Education Resources Council, comprised of school faculty, to create and oversee a book approval process — which will include the development of a list of targeted courses “for which high-quality, affordable, digital open source textbooks and related materials would be developed or acquired” by the University of California, California State University, or California Community College systems. The council will then solicit bids to produce these textbooks in 2013. (The first free books are set to be available for the 2013-2014 school year.) And the bill makes clear that the council has the option to use “existing high-quality digital open source textbooks and related materials” if those materials fit its requirements.

Drupal is not known as the most performant application, neither is the PHP language it is written on, but there are lots of things you can do to increase the performance of your Drupal site. This article will touch on many of those methods covering key modules, configuring these modules and setting up other applications to aid your Drupal site.

Social media has become a powerful tool in attracting a large number of inbound links at a low cost. In this whitepaper, part of the Adrants Whitepaper Series, HubSpot provides ten steps for brands seeking to get others to link to their site without spending a red cent on advertising or other promotions. From guest blog posts to contests to lists to content distribution strategies and more, the whitepaper provides how to tips as well as real world examples of the tips in action.

No one ever said being an entrepreneur is easy. Creating your own business and career path is tough — and succeeding in this lifestyle seems to require an elusive mix of traits.

After all, most of the entrepreneurs I know are intelligent. They are hardworking and usually at the top of their given field. However, all too often I’ve watched these smart people go from thriving in the workplace to struggling as a business owner.

There are numerous reasons why some entrepreneurs make it big, while others flounder. Here are seven key reasons why some entrepreneurs fail to live up to their potential.

In this Social Media Wrap Up September 2012 report, part of the Adrants whitepaper series, top marketing experts share their lessons learned and secrets on social media discussing everything from the basics to the most advanced techniques. The report, a collection of several short articles, will help you learn how your company should use social media as well as how to hire a social media agency or whether or not you should keep the position in-house.

Fis Anton Repponen has worked with some of the worlds biggest brands. Now you can learn from that experience, as he presents his own personal checklist for better designs

This design checklist is a guide that I created for myself over time – it allows me to find the balance between the two extremes I face daily as a designer. At times I can get carried away and only focus on all the little details without seeing the project from a birds-eye view, while at other times I only think of the project from a holistic perspective, without really focusing on the important details. Following these 10 steps allows me to stay on track with multiple projects simultaneously, and allows for a healthier design process overall.